When I’ve grown weary of the egg-topped, cold-pressed, nose-to-tail, foodier-than-thou preciousness of modern American dining, there’s no better antidote than Santa Maria. To me, Santa Maria is preserved from an era when steakhouses represented the height of fashion and stag nights at “the club” were de rigueur — when luxury was as close as the nearest department store and oil rigs pumped quietly on the outskirts of town.
The irony of Santa Maria’s no-frills dining scene, of course, is that it boasts Santa Maria–style barbecue, one of the most important and authentic foodways in the country. Originating with California’s vaqueros, Santa Maria–style barbecue was passed down over generations, copyrighted by the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce in the late 1970s, and is protected most fiercely today by members of the Santa Maria Elks Lodge.